Best Bain Poems
Introspection
suspends in dark blue amnion
as rainwater blooms a reflection pool
an oasis of energy for contemplative embryo;
in stillness I grow.. my pulse a flowing stream of raindrops
my body the rhythm maker
my mind the artiste
in a cocoon a rhythmic womb —
a primal nest gestates my om
b r e a t h i n g i n
b r e a t h i n g o u t
saturation of breath
soaks and stretches my cortex canvas;
within the indigo sphere
I paint a mural
upon my sacred temple walls
a self-portrait
with a benevolent brush dipped in starlight –
I surrender staying and portraying within the lines
uncaged colors roam
beyond my human extremities and Earth’s edge
a gouache-plash of teal and fuchsia
fraternize with fibers of flesh and marrow
conceiving abstracts as airy as sparrow dreams
as I - a mindful explorer flies an inner cosmos
beyond the confines of the canvas white
outside the frames of physicality and reality
to throw open window panes to the unlimited
to banish pains of the limited — free
my meditative spirit making art with the universe
Susan Ashley
September 7, 2022
~ Fifth Place ~
Premiere Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 18
Sponsor: Mark Toney
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: Brian Strand Premiere Choice
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Photo: The Seer; Laurie Bain Hamilton - owner of primalpainter
"Fathoms Deeper"
What are these strange creatures?
They swim in skins
not their own
calling us
into them
they amuse us
we are fathoms deeper
they
are a long way
from Home
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
Swimming with orca in New Zealand, 2/3/2016.
https://youtu.be/JQ3mDXF3bcE
July, 2022. Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Orcas.
Billy Bain, Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/865795424/videos/pcb.10166246143865425/1057112558247174
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/killer-whale
https://www.livescience.com/27431-orcas-killer-whales.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca
James Bain imprisoned in jail for a crime he did not commit
Proclaiming his innocence that took a long 35 years to acquit
Accused of raping a nine year old boy, when he was just nineteen
That his young life would be stolen from him was devastatingly unforeseen
All because he fit the description, a case of mistaken identity
Now facing years of hardships, gone the days of relaxed serenity
The mental anguish he must have endured, one can not conceive
Yet, he's not angry or bitter, angst most of us could not perceive
Four motions were denied for DNA testing on his case
The fifth proved his innocence and became his saving grace
Released when he was 54, with a smile that doesn't leave his face
He says: "it's because I got God", his devout faith he does embrace
Now positive and happy, he is an inspiration to all mankind
To fight and not to give up hope when dealt cards justly unkind.
Sponsor ~ Black Eyed Susan
Contest Name ~ Wrongful Imprisonment or Sentenced
OH NO! I’m late for school
I’m in trouble now.
I’ve broken the rules.
I sit in my class try to stay awake.
Eyes are heavy, I begin to flake.
The new girl in class she’s staring at me.
I look back at her my heart my heart skips a beat.
I feel the blood drain from my face.
It’s starting to flow to another place.
Mother of god! It’s happening again.
Control of my body i can’t maintain.
I can’t stand up i cannot move.
The pressure is mounting, please make it drop.
Think of foot ball or snooker it just needs to stop.
I hate my teenage life, being a teenage boy.
Everything is just designed to annoy.
The adults that moan are the Bain of my life.
“If you don’t change you won’t find a wife”.
I want my freedom I want to drink, I want to smoke.
Just chill out with my mates be a regular bloke.
Xbox, Sony or Nintendo Wii.
They’re what I want, they’ll do for me.
I want the pictures.
I want to watch tv.
My Parents embarrass,
They think I’m their slave
But just peace on my own
That’s what I crave.
I lay in my bed I dream of the girl
A hypnotic effect she makes my head whirl
I think I love her, but that is my secret
I can’t tell a soul, this does remain sacred.
I think of her, and I go all aquiver
I go weak at the knees and I start to shiver.
I’ll ask her tomorrow I’ll make the leap
But for now I’ve had a hard day.
I’m going to sleep.
(NP) SHE WAS KIDDING
Its not offensive odors which bother me
That’s the province of my loving and ever-tolerant wife: she
Whose nose can detect a shoeless sock
Which has been worn for even a half hour on the clock,
Or me cooking sausages even before they start to smoulder,
Or if I ate onion three days ago. No. As I get older
It’s noise pollution which is my life’s bain,
Especially rock music which gives me pain,
The guys with 600 watts in their car at the red light,
The punks on the corner sharing earpieces in the night,
And I can still hear it half a block away straight.
Obviously good music ended with Sergeant Pepper in 1968
But the worst of all the modern notions is (c)rap
“Music”. I mean who was it that told the guy in the baseball cap,
The fat guy in sunglasses, that he could sing?
Was it his mother? Didn’t he know she was kidding?
……………………………………………………………………………………….
Entered in Susan Burch’s Contest Noise Pollution
Lost in the Translation
“Donnez-moi un verre de vin”
My accent seemed strange at the Paris café
They brought me an entire carafe of wine
And I drank it all to my escort’s dismay
When I asked, “Ou est la salle de bain?”
Le confused garcon led me to the alleyway
“Où sont les toilettes?” I tried again
“C'est à l'hôtel,” was all he could say
Groaning, “Sacré bleu, PARDON MY FRENCH!”
I spun and jogged miles to my hotel in haste
Two thousand for airfare, far more for a tutor
Such an investment seems quite a “waste”
When all you want is to relieve yourself
And still cannot locate the proper place
*Assigned phrase for Deborah’s contest: PARDON MY FRENCH
New tenant, new tile,
Got me Christopher
Columbus,
Didn't come to
Harm us
Or else, I tag him
Vincent Price,
Twice as nice in
Dracula Drag.
A message here
For moving blues?
Seems clear: Sail On
Girl, To New World
with flag unfurled
"Write your dreams," Carolyn Kizer told us
in a long-ago poetry workshop in Paris. I would
like to, Yes, follow that instruction, but on wee-
hour trips (no pun intended), to the 'salle de bain'
I describe as 'the patter of little feet,' I sit dazed,
drowned in the rip tide of the sandman. Swim
sideways, it is said, and do not panic.
My betta, Beau, (for beautiful) in his glass bowl
has no such problem. He dozes on an artificial leaf
fastened by suction cup at the edge of the water
where he hangs, calm and motionless. I'm
pulled from my dream where I am the hostess
in a strange house, pouring champagne
into crystal flutes. Among the guests,
several lovers from the past, accompanied
by their current amours. Only one
embraced me with the old sexual longing,
(but didn't leave his telephone number).
In the dream I walked to the back of the house
into a spacious yard which became the ocean,
waves breaking at the brink of an open door.
"If this were MY dream," said Terri, our leader in
a dreamwork class, "I would... " maybe, say,
that the ordinary can bespeak peril?
I press my hands against my eyes to shut
out the light, and then I rise, reluctantly,
from roaming the corridors of night to go feed
the fish who bolts from sleep, swims to me
when I press my face against his bowl,
and say, Good Morning, Gorgeous. You,
of the dreams of open streams--
the dream that spins fins.
A Penn Valley phantom appears to haunt and lurk
premises at 1148 Greentree Lane
his youngest daughter (Abby) I pledged my troth and, natch won my Zison’s
Dunkirk
ire and vindictiveness akin to rivalry of Abel versus Cain
now breeds and festers hallucinations that make me go berserk
also brings to mind myth of another named King Canute, a Great Dane
whose battle cry and hymn of the Republic made manifest with ease of dirk
visitations with ethereal sprite pushes me to madness and makes me go
insane
torture treatment mangles mental management amidst mire and murk!
The rattle of chains heard despite noiseless apparition and wraith, which curse
and bain
from dark and sinister shadows make me feel like a jerk
at such fallacious belief in preternatural imaginative creations ranked as inane
by this skeptic whose vulnerable acuteness to otherworldly visages does perk
especially during wee hours of morning when superstition runs amuck and
seems to gain
upper hand and let spiral out of rational control thought of afterlife quirk
yet confession must be made that long dead father of wife does wag finger of
disdain
and utter silent disapproval and near ruination by marrying a bum of a guy who
lacks for work!
A Penn Valley phantom appears to haunt and lurk
premises at 1148 Greentree Lane
his youngest daughter (Abby) I pledged my troth and, natch won my Zison’s
Dunkirk
ire and vindictiveness akin to rivalry of Abel versus Cain
now breeds and festers hallucinations that make me go berserk
also brings to mind myth of another named King Canute, a Great Dane
whose battle cry and hymn of the Republic made manifest with ease of dirk
visitations with ethereal sprite pushes me to madness and makes me go
insane
torture treatment mangles mental management amidst mire and murk!
The rattle of chains heard despite noiseless apparition and wraith, which curse
and bain
from dark and sinister shadows make me feel like a jerk
at such fallacious belief in preternatural imaginative creations ranked as inane
by this skeptic whose vulnerable acuteness to otherworldly visages does perk
especially during wee hours of morning when superstition runs amuck and
seems to gain
upper hand and let spiral out of rational control thought of afterlife quirk
yet confession must be made that long dead father of wife does wag finger of
disdain
and utter silent disapproval and near ruination by marrying a bum of a guy who
lacks for work!
I rise from the bed, make coffee,
drink the obligatory first cup, sending
me racing to the "salle de bain" to begin
a day of eliminating the negative,
accentuating the positive, as Bing Crosby
instructed in our youthful days.
I select from a stack of magazines,
one, waiting to be opened, read about
the history of chess and young grandmasters,
considering that at 80, grandmistress
of nothing, I should teach myself chess,
swim good enough to compete, sky dive
into the air over my island beneath a sexy
instructor, coupling with the clouds.
Instead I cut out paper dolls:
a poem by Donald Hall, hoping it will
teach me improved line breaks. His,
are impeccable. Who is this guy and why
do I love him? Then on the credits page,
"Former poet laureate". No wonder,
I say, no freaking wonder!
I once asked my workshop director
from a former life in Atlanta, "Just how
important are line breaks?" HUGE,
he replies. "Rats." I say, "never be a poet."
Still, I want to be a scary, frightening
poet like Robinson Jeffers. I go
where the pain is, try couplets, take out
all adjectives, see what's left, watch
participles; turn, counter-turn,
and stand.
The word at the end of any line is most
important. Break on nouns, verbs,
and the words that describe them:
"When the blackberries hang / swollen
in the woods," (Mary Oliver) Timing,
as in most things, is everything, and I
have just broken all the rules
I work for a fellow called Bain
Whose cancer gives him a pain.
I cleaned his house til it gleamed,
made him feel better it seemed
So he asked me to come again and again!
Written 2000
Agay lun pechay lun
lun lun lun
Dain lun bain lun
lun lun lun
Opar lun nechay lun
lun lun lun.
Note.Ham sab lund ki paidavar hain.
Hamaray opar Lanat bay shumaar....
combien de temps cela prend-il pour une connexion
entre deux personnes à se gâter?
de la déshydratation de la
dépression qui a conduit l'un à cet endroit
où l'électricité d'une nouvelle personne
fait ressortir le meilleur de vous
vous envoie dans un nouveau lieu
de sucre sweet sweet,
et ensuite revenir au sel,
la dépression,
cette fois à nouveau avec une douce sensation que les
il n'ya absolument aucun sens dans ce
moment extrêmement brève
l'existence.
c'est le sucre qui adoucit tout ce
c'est le sucre qui vous fait revenir pour plus et
alors que la plupart conviennent que, après
7 mois
les choses commencent à mal tourner
(due au fait que le réel vous commence à montrer),
il semble que la connaissance de ce fait
personne ne fait rien pour arrêter leur propre vie
de se déplacer vers le marasme banales
ou la destruction complète de la
relation.
lorsque vous quittez un moment heureux
marcher dans la salle de bain
regardant dans le miroir que vous vous lavez
mains propres,
vous savez qu'ils ne sont pas vraiment propre et
que ce moment de bonheur n'est qu'un moment,
que la mort de cette connexion est imminente ---
si vous jetez l'eau jusqu'à dans votre visage
regarder de nouveau dans le miroir et
revenir à la pièce où vous
autre significatif du moment
sera de retour après avoir été fait
se laver les mains et leur visage
dans une salle de bains dans le hall.
Lying with you there on the ground
the night is silent cept for a distant sound
it rolls from above ,but does`ntcome down,
the flashes that caused it shows what I have found
Just when I should be calm and quite content
I think ahead to the next day and I doubt it`ll be
the way I want it.
I was starting to feel weak and wrong
and I began to shiver.
Then you squeeezed me tight and str;ong
`till I coukld only quiver.
My breath was shalllow and quick and I was scared,
then you squeezed me even tighter untill my fear was bared.
I was begining to think I`ll alllways sleep alone,
then you were beside me and we were alone.
I felt unsure , then you said for sure.
I was startring to wander and float off the ground,
then you took me where no one was around,
we stirred up some thunder and sparked some lighting,
for some reason that storm was not so frightening.
(c) Brian Bain
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